Ida Vitale

Born in Uruguay in 1923 Ida Vitale is one of Latin America’s most respected poets. She’s the last survivors of the exceptional Generation of ’45, whose numbers included Mario Benedetti, Maria Ines Silva and Angel Rama. 

Vitale, who has published more than thirty books of poetry, criticism and translations, was forced into exile following a military coup in Uruguay back in the early seventies. She lived for years in Mexico and later in Austin, Texas. In 2016 she returned to Uruguay and now lives in Montevideo.

Vitale has said that she was inspired to write poetry by reading the work of Antonio Machado. “The world is full of people who are too satisfied,” Vitale once observed. “We have to know that we can always go one step further. And most of all, we mustn’t accept that language says everything. What is said is a specter, a phantom of something else.” Her most recent book, Poesia Reunida, appeared in 2017.  Her awards include the Octavio Paz Prize, the Garcia Lorca prize, the Max Jacob award, and the Cervantes Award for Literature. In 2019 the BBC named her one of the world’s 100 most influential women.

Step By Step

Soon the wind will come
and it will be autumn.
Summer is leaving and some memory falls
and life descends another step
unnoticed,
from yellow to yellow.
Goodbye, stay back,
the step I didn't take,
the uncertain friendship,
scarcely a dream.

It will be autumn soon.
There's no longer time.

I lost a magic double
of my name,
a fleeting sign
that could have made the world more exact.
I lost the peace,
the war.
I lost life perhaps
and perhaps I've still not earned
death itself.

In empty space
someone is strumming a string,
very gently.
It's already autumn, so soon.
There's no longer time.

    — Translation by Rowena Hill

from Ida Vitale’s "Suddenly everything is nothing"

Paso a Paso

De pronto vendrá el viento
y será otoño.
Se va el verano y cae algún recuerdo
y baja otro escalón
sin ser notada la vida,
de amarillo en amarillo.
Adiós, atrás,
el paso que no he dado,
la insegura amistad,
apenas sueño.

Será otoño de pronto.
No hay ya tiempo.

Perdí un mágico doble
de mi nombre,
un pasajero signo
que pudo hacer el mundo más exacto.
Perdí la paz,
la guerra.
Perdí acaso la vida
y acaso aún no gané
la propia muerte.

En el vacío espacio
alguien tañe una cuerda,
poco a poco. Ya es otoño, tan pronto.
No hay ya tiempo.

* Ida Vitale. " Todo de pronto es nada "